


_Mimicry

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [16]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, minor Bad Blood spoiler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take care the road you choose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	_Mimicry

**Author's Note:**

> _Thanks to Esquire-man at ff.nt for the spark of inspiration!_
> 
> **Author's Note:** I'm not sure if Profiler output is random for this guy. At any rate, I made him younger than what Profiler gave me.

 [takes place in 2014, right before bad blood: fox hunt]

* * *

Aiden Pearce leans his shoulder into the rusting metal of the broken container. It's a pose of studied casualness with the light at his back and the preceding violence still cackling in the air like electricity, ready to leap. He's synced the phones and now uses his own to browse the files. The other phone rests in his hand, relaxed by his side. He's put his gun away, into the holster on his shoulder and his battered coat has fallen down to hide it. 

A few random drops of rain skitter inside, form tiny puddles on the uneven floor and water runs down the container to where a man is cowering. The water has wet his knees where he hasn't picked himself back up. If he stood up, both men would be the same height or very nearly so. The man is ten years Pearce's junior, almost to a day, and his body has been sculpted within the confines of a gym. There is nothing in his record that implies he's ever fought anything more dangerous than an exercise machine.

Profiles identifies him as _[Rennie Guilio, 29, geologist]._

He has some skill, but he has never had to put it to the test and there is no true grit. He's already broken before the contest has began. Pearce finally looks up and his cool gaze pins him in place.

"You're him, aren't you? You're the vigilante!" the man says, at long last. He sits up, begins to stand, but doesn't go through with it.

Pearce only looks back at him, silent for too long until the other man can't stand it anymore.

"I thought you were gone!" Rennie gasps.

"Just because _you_ couldn't see me?" Pearce asks. He seems cooly amused and furious in equal measure, but the shadows of his cap hide most of his face from sight. He hasn't pushed his mask down all the way.

"What you do," Rennie says and he sounds pleading. He spreads his hands out as he speaks. Water drips from his dark gloves. "It matters to this city and then… suddenly… you were just gone."

"So?"

"Someone has to do the work," Rennie says and he genuinely believes it. It's in the voice, on the edge of trembling but full of conviction. He's too lost and confused, too cold and wet, and Pearce has had him stuffed in the trunk of a car none too gently. Rennie doesn't understand how to read this man, he can only grope blindly for answers and cling to the idea in his own head until the idol inevitably falls short of it.

"The work," Pearce repeats. "What's that?"

Rennie flounders. He pulls himself up, gaining strength from the mere fact that they are talking at all.

"I've read everything I could on you. All the news and on the internet? You help! Everything the cops can't or won't do. That's you," Rennie says and his voice jumps up and down in his own excitement. "ctOS and Blume and all the corruption. I know that was you, too. You took down Lucky Quinn and the Black Viceroys are in shambles! That's all _you._ But then you were gone and… we have the Militia and the Club fighting it out on _our_ streets. People are dying! Like we're suddenly a third world country. And the cops stand there and watch. Someone had to do something!"

Pearce still watches him. He hasn't moved, not even the twitch of a muscle and Rennie should be forgiven to misinterpret his stillness for passivity.

Pearce says, "You shouldn't believe everything you find on the internet."

Rennie thinks on it, silently, a frown on his pale face and his eyes faintly feverish. "You weren't gone?" he concludes.

Pearce shakes his head. "Not that part," he says, but Rennie doesn't get it, fails to hear the warning.

"Do you…" Rennie starts and stops. He's stumbling in the dark, doesn't know what to make of this, where it will go — he doesn't even know where it came from. "Do you need help?" he asks finally. "I can help!"

There is something odd in the way Pearce does not just laugh him off, but he moves his head a little before he says, "You don't get it."

Rennie takes a step forward. Where he is, the water is ankle deep, it must have filled his boots by now, must be uncomfortable and cold, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" he asks. "Bit off more than I could chew. _Of course_ I did! But someone _had_ to. I'm learning! I'm not there, but… if you teach me?"

"Yeah," Pearce agrees. "You're an idiot."

He starts to turn away, then stops on the threshold of the container. "Go home," he says without looking at Rennie. "Play a video game, jerk off, find a new job, do what normal people do. Stay away from this shit."

Water splashes loudly as Rennie crosses the container, so fast, he's breathing hard after only a few steps. He catches up to Pearce and the only reason he gets a hand on his arm is because Pearce doesn't think he's a threat.

Pearce stills in Rennie's grip, a mere courtesy, turns his head to look at him. He's already passed outside and the pallid light finds his face, but it leaves his expression untouched and unchanged.

"Wait, no!" Rennie almost shouts. His eyes are wide. "I can help! I swear! Whatever you need, there must be something, right? I can't just waste my life for nothing! It has to _mean_ something!"

"Let go of me," Pearce says without raising his voice, but a slight growl slides in behind his words.

Rennie blinks, looks down where his fingers are clutching at Pearce's arm. He opens his hand and holds it emptily in the air, awkward until he lets it drop by his side. Dejectedly, he mutters, "So-sorry."

He avoids Pearce's gaze, lets it circle around him before he brings it back. The slivers of hope in Rennie's eyes haven't gone away. "Please?" he says.

Pearce looks on the ground in front of him, contemplative, then he turns and faces Rennie, who's raised an inch above by the container he's still standing in.

"Just so we're clear," Pearce says. "You aren't gonna stop, are you? You're gonna do it anyway."

Rennie nods, he thinks he sees the silver lining and the reflection is already there, colouring his cheeks and threatening to break his expression into a smile. If he'd dared, he'd reach for Pearce again and shake his hand in gratitude.

"I _have_ to," Rennie says.

Pearce's eyes narrow at the washed out expression. No, he _doesn't_ have to. No one does, not even Pearce himself, though it's not a thought he entertains often and when it sneaks up on him, he has too many easy ways to distract himself. But Rennie doesn't even have Pearce's excuses, no Freudian tragedy, no overwhelming guilt. He's just a guy rendered a little crazy by the sheer ordinariness of his own life.

Pearce has already gone too far to turn back, if only in his own mind. He likes to think he understands his own shortcomings too well. He has no patience to spare for those who don't.

"Alright," Pearce says.

He turns and throws Rennie's phone at him. He catches it awkwardly as it hits his chest and he has to flail before he can get it back in his hands. He looks down at it, then back at Pearce.

"You know about this island?" Pearce asks, makes a gesture with one hand. "It's a ctOS blind spot. The bridges aren't networked, but I put a one-time hack on your phone so you can leave. It gets you _home_ ," he says, stresses the word, but he doesn't think it will connect. "Or, you stay. Some fixers sometimes come here by boat. I've been staking them out, something's going down tonight. You wanna play? Here's your game."

There's a part of Rennie still capable of reasonable thinking and it's that part that makes him hesitate, look up from his phone to study Pearce in the vain hope to make sense of anything about him at all.

"If you screw up," Pearce continues his low-voiced narrative. "If the fixers catch you, they'll put you down, they _won't_ let you off with a warning and a bloody nose."

"No, I'll be careful!" Rennie insisted. "What… when I manage to do this? Will you take me on?"

Pearce arches his eyebrows and then shakes his head. Something akin to sadness comes into his voice. "You'll be dead tomorrow," he says. "But I'm not going to stop you."

Rennie sucks in a breath through his opened mouth, about to say something — some meaningless denial and equally meaningless assurance for his own benefit — but Pearce doesn't stay to listen.

Rennie watches him as he walks back to his car and gets in. The engine's roar is unexpectedly loud. The rain has softened the ground and the car leaves deep gashes behind as Pearce drives away. The bridge ahead shudders into place for him and then returns to its position above the water.

Rennie looks at his phone and spots the icon for the bridge hack Pearce mentioned. For a brief moment, he considers. He thinks of going home, but he can't quite picture it. He remembers why he's started in the first place, because Pearce seemed to have vanished and handed the city back to its dishonest leaders.

No, he can't let it go and maybe he shouldn't. It's a test. Pearce is just testing him and his rude behaviour is just the way he is. Every hero is shaped by his tragedies and Rennie will not judge Pearce for how he deals with it. Underneath it all, Pearce cares, Rennie is certain of it. Pearce won't let him come to harm over nothing but a test.

The wind picks up and Rennie retreats into the container. He'll need a better hiding spot, he decides. He'll document the fixers on his phone, make sure the evidence was so bullet-proof no amount of bribery can save them. And then, Pearce will let him work with him. Perhaps he can be a student and Pearce the mentor. They can turn this entire city around, together.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've burned myself out a bit with Nightcall, so just a small offering to keep myself writing. Enjoy!
> 
> "Take Care the Road You Choose" is also a pretty good song by Richard Thompson.
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Revised** _on 01/June/2015 and 01/June/2016_


End file.
